Three days of digging, sand shuffling and sculpting is done. Read more to see the results!

Levelling the base to an inch of its life.

The bricks were laid properly this time. I used concrete to butter the ones in the front in.

One of the areas the last oven fell down was the dome shape. I don’t think it ever burnt as efficiently or took enough fuel. This one was sculpted perfectly.

Getting more dome like.

Covered in newspaper to preserve shape and ensure I don’t dig too deep getting the sand out. I added an arch, glued with quite dry cement. The “door” is a thin plywood form just to keep the arch up.

Treading the clay for the thermal mass.

We used an old clay pipe for the chimney supported on the thermal mass. The thermal mass that makes up the arch connecting the dome to the bricks has straw mixed in.

Sculpting on day one with insulation put on.

Broken glass for fangs

We lit a fire lighter to check the smoke came out.

We used an hand auger/borer to mine for clay. It’s really much easier than simply digging a hole. It’s a deep hole

2nd day, putting on a roof.

The sculpting continues!

Finally a pic of me doing something! Emptying the sand.

All emptied and ready for a week of small drying fires! Thanks Tiff for the awesome dragon, thanks Hatty for being so patient whilst your mum was busy, Tony, Gary and Helsi for the mixing, throwing mud at me and general aid and especially Helsi for the many foods and drinks!

Waark! info:

I'm Tim, a 31yr old ex-Allotmenteer. My wife and I used to have a small 5 rod plot in South Essex where we grew all manner of veg. I'm also involved in brewing the odd keg of beer.

When getting down the allotment got too hard and our circumstances changed we bought a house with a 65ftx30ft garden, which we're converting into a mini orchard and veg beds.

We get up to some weird and wonderful projects - we've built a small boat, a pig roaster (powered by a windscreen wiper), a chicken run, raised beds and try our hands at all sorts of stuff getting us closer to being 'self sufficientish'.

The hope is to introduce chickens soon and hopefully let them free range during the day.